Density-Based Program Design

Well said Charlie. If someone is getting great results and keeping people injury free, why not “borrow” from them? I’ve used Eric Cressey’s Ultimate Off Season Maunual with my athletes (while modfying it appropriately) because it’s really good stuff, and I get great results.

I completely agree Charlie. I do not like to incorporate these tri-sets and quad-sets in my programs with athletes as I feel when you combine too many things together the athletes lose focus of the primary lift…ie the deadlift, hang clean, snatch, etc….We do all of our myofascial release, mobility, stability, activation work before any workout so we can place emphasis on them at that point in time. I find that when you combine things the athletes tend to do 2 things either skip over the the mobility/corrective work and/or as previously mentioned, lose focus on what the main exercise is at hand.

“It depends” always seems like the way to go. Plus going through as full a ROM as your body permits within the context of optimal movement mechanics will do nothing but help maintain mobility. Of course those who need more mobility for one reason or another would benefit from more frequent exposures, and the density approach just makes it possible to fit more in without having to free up more time. Of course some out there may take it a bit too far and try to cram too much in, but this is where individualization once again comes in……if it fulfills a pressing need and can be done with high enough quality, keep it in and as presently structured, and if quality takes a hit, drop an element (or shuffle it around) and focus on bringing up the quality of the biggest bang-for-your-buck elements before trying to compress things any further or add more elements to the mix.

As for the cook vs. chef issue, it is absolutely okay to be a cook in certain areas, provided you are borrowing your recipes from trustworthy, quality sources. But then again, I think the continuing education mindset may be partly to blame, as it often focuses in on the why. “Why” is a critical question for so many reasons, but sometimes I think we allow it to makes us afraid to say, “Because so and so says so, gets excellent results, and quite frankly knows more than I do in this particular area.” Blending one’s own common sense with the advice of a legitimate expert in any particular area can often go a long way. But for whatever reason, a borderline fear has been created among many where they find themselves afraid to admit they don’t know all the reasons why something works or how it all fits together and are simply using it as such because someone smarter than them does it that way and gets the desired result.

Ray – I may only take one exception with your post. Common sense isn’t always so common. Crunches, leg presses, and seated shoulder presses are quite common and pushed by big time names.

While this blog post and subsequent comments is all well and good and i totally agree; However, i think one point everyone may be missing in this discussion is that we never bothered to clarrify what setting of the proffesion we are refferring too.

I think if you practice in the private sector (training facilities) and YOU CHOOSE to run and individualized programming business model, then everything said applies.

However, if were talking about a collegiate setting where you may have 32 varsity teams and only 2 strength coaches and no GA’s you’re almost forced to use some form of a group program that everyone follows. While we would all agree this yeild less than optimal results and i would even say that with some elbow grease and organization you can attempt adding in some “individualization” a bit. The reality is many collegiate settings would struggle greatly trying to do that and end up resorting to the generic group program we all secretly frown upon. In this situation, i think the program design DOES matter. So much so that i would even go as far as to say it matters MORE in this setting then the “individualized” approach.

As Charlie was referring too, you can shuffle around and reorganize a persons program and still end up training the same qualities to match the appropriate goals. But its MUCH more difficult to program design for 30 athletes that’ll be in your weight room in 1 week with no time for assesments of each athlete. I this case i think it matters even more how you organize the training and the specifics of the program design SHOULD be something you really think about.

Just some thoughts. . .

Sam, I think your example demonstrates a lack of importance on specific program design. If atmosphere, size, coach:athlete ratio changes your design, AND you still get great results, I think that diminishes from the variable’s importance.

My point is that there are dozens are fantastic program designs from athletic development that are all more the same than different when you strip away the quad-sets or warm-up choices or how you train for power.

I would suggest that if you can add serious performance skills by improving movement quality or neuromuscular efficiency, THAT to me is the bread and butter and individual excellence.
Play the neuro games AND move well AND go big in the weight room is how you make a monster. There is so much variability to be excellent.

I would just prefer people didn’t hold on so tight to the so few wrong things to do.

Yea I found myself at this point at one time, after first coming back from Cook’s seminar. I was at the point where I had all of my clients working much of their time on corrective strategies rather than performance. It took quite a while to learn how own the skills and actually figure out how to have them integrated so that skill remains a focus. Still I have not completely mastered all of it, but I think it was nescessary to start by following people wiser than me, until I really understood what the reasoning was to what they were doing. Thanks for this post Charlie always nice to hear some sort of reassurance.